homehome Home chatchat Notifications


'Yuri Gagarin' blasts off to the ISS

It’s a pretty busy period for the people over at the International Space Station (ISS). Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome last night paid tribute to Yuri Gagarin as the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft named after the first man to walk into space blasted off towards the ISS. A week from now, on April 12, we will be celebrating […]

Mihai Andrei
April 5, 2011 @ 5:53 am

share Share

It’s a pretty busy period for the people over at the International Space Station (ISS). Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome last night paid tribute to Yuri Gagarin as the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft named after the first man to walk into space blasted off towards the ISS.

A week from now, on April 12, we will be celebrating 50 years from the groundbreaking first flight into outer space, done by Yuri Gagarin, and astronauts Ronald Garan, and cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyayev and Andrei Borisenko departed from the same pad as their predecessor.

The Soyuz, a legedary Russian spaceship is due to dock the ISS tomorrow, and there it will hook up with Expedition 27 crew members commander Dmitry Kondratyev, and flight engineers Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli who have been orbiting the space station since December last year and will return to Earth in May. They will be replaced by NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa. NASA will be streaming LIVE videos of tomorrow’s docking here, and if you ask me, it wil be quite a show, so don’t miss it.

EDIT: the live broadcast is already running, you can see the guys gearing up and preparing for the launch.

share Share

Astronomers May Have Discovered The First Rocky Earth-Like World With An Atmosphere, Just 41 Light Years Out

Astronomers may have discovered the first rocky planet with 'air' where life could exist.

Mars Seems to Have a Hot, Solid Core and That's Surprisingly Earth-Like

Using a unique approach to observing marsquakes, researchers propose a structure for Mars' core.

Giant solar panels in space could deliver power to Earth around the clock by 2050

A new study shows space solar panels could slash Europe’s energy costs by 2050.

Frozen Wonder: Ceres May Have Cooked Up the Right Recipe for Life Billions of Years Ago

If this dwarf planet supported life, it means there were many Earths in our solar system.

Astronomers See Inside The Core of a Dying Star For the First Time, Confirm How Heavy Atoms Are Made

An ‘extremely stripped supernova’ confirms the existence of a key feature of physicists’ models of how stars produce the elements that make up the Universe.

Scientists May Have Found a New Mineral on Mars. It Hints The Red Planet Stayed Warm Longer

Scientists trace an enigmatic infrared band to heated, oxygen-altered sulfates.

A Comet That Exploded Over Earth 12,800 Years Ago May Have Triggered Centuries of Bitter Cold

Comet fragments may have sparked Earth’s mysterious 1,400-year cold spell.

Astronomers Find ‘Punctum,’ a Bizarre Space Object That Might be Unlike Anything in the Universe

Bright, polarized, and unseen in any other light — Punctum challenges astrophysical norms.

How Much Has Mercury Shrunk?

Mercury is still shrinking as it cools in the aftermath of its formation; new research narrows down estimates of just how much it has contracted.

First Complete Picture of Nighttime Clouds on Mars

Data captured by the Emirates Mars Mission reveal that clouds are typically thicker during Martian nighttime than daytime.